Your Productivity Doesn’t Measure Your Self-Worth
Anyone who knows me would take one look at this title and keel over laughing. I am the absolute last person you would expect that would give this advice. I often take on multiple projects, overloading myself with freelance work or schoolwork over a short span of time. My productivity is best defined as bursts of hyper-productivity followed by days of feeling empty and burned out. I don’t feel motivated to finish small, achievable tasks, only a truckload of difficult ones that require my full attention. So while I can finish a 2,000 word essay in the span of an hour, I would wait until the very last minute to start and submit a 500 word essay due at 11:59PM. I always did love a challenge.
More often than not, emotional turmoil leaves me paralyzed, unable to work. This is why I’ve always practiced using my negative emotions as fuel for productivity, and this led to my chronic habit of tiring myself out to a point where I’m too exhausted to be upset over whatever it was that got me six feet under my own to do list. Another thing that probably contributed to this whole shebang is the fact that it was ingrained into my mind that only results, not effort, merited acclaim.
While a lot of people praised me for how productive I was or how much money I made as a student, it didn’t feel as much of a compliment as it probably should’ve been. I’ve been contributing to my parents’ business since I was in the first year of high school, and I’ve been working in one way or another ever since. Earning money felt like breathing, it came naturally to me to want to work, no matter how hectic school was or how tired I was. I also kind of felt the need to, because like a majority of the families in this pandemic, ours also faced financial struggle. I wanted to contribute in any way that I could.
It’s fruitful, but it’s utterly exhausting. I constantly feel guilty whenever I’m not doing anything that’s on my to do list, even when there actually isn’t anything to do. There’s a lot of people who will praise you for all that you’ve achieved, when it’s on Facebook or when they’ve seen the results. The picture perfect outcome is the only thing they see. Only a select few will understand the anxiety, the mental burden, and the fatigue you had to power through to achieve it. The person who understands it the most, though, will always be you.
Fuck results. While it may take a car an hour to reach the end of a highway, a person walking will take much longer. The end result is the same, but the latter obviously had to put in more effort to achieve it. Who cares if what’s his face achieved this or did that, you had to deal with problems at home, or with your significant other while doing it. This isn’t to invalidate the efforts of others, it’s for you to acknowledge that you had it hard, and nobody will understand just how much as well as you do. You had to wage a war with yourself and everything on your mind just to finish that essay. You should be proud, and you should learn to value your own work, because everyone else won’t get how tiring it was to walk the road you paved just to cross the finish line.
A friend of mine recently told me that the way that I work, while effective, is not sustainable. This, I knew, of course. Everything had a price. The mental and emotional toll from the periods of burnout I go through will accumulate over time, and who knows what will happen then. I won’t tell you that I’ve suddenly changed, that I quit the habit of chronic overworking, because that would be a lie. I still struggle to moderate my work, and it’s difficult for me to take days off, even when I know I should. There’s still a part of me that equates my self worth to my productivity, and it drains me. I don’t have the strength or the energy to talk to most of my friends, even if I’m extroverted by nature. Little by little though, I’m trying to work things out — distributing my tasks, taking breaks, and avoiding piling too many things on my plate.
Yes, all things considered, I am the last person you’d expect to hear this from. Although, I think that’s all the more reason you should take my word for it. I understand how hard each day is, and how strong you had to be to make it to today. I might not be the success story that you were hoping for, and I have a long way to go. But as I’ve said before, fuck the results. What matters is that I’m trying, and that you’re trying. At the end of the day, that is an achievement in and of itself. There isn’t any quick fix to learning how to appreciate your own effort, and being kinder to yourself, but all you have to do is take the first step. It might be a long road ahead, but you will get there, eventually.
